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Steampunk Earth Timeline
Timeline of Steampunk Earth 1820s * 1823, May 17: A certain Mr. James Haversham returns from India, and soon begins selling a patent medicine ('Haversham's Sovereign Cognitive Enhancer') which seemed to enhance the mental faculties (as well as cause an initial few seconds of intense synæsthesia), primarily in the areas of focus, creativity, and craftsmanship - in other words, an early form of nootropic drug. * 1825, April-Nov.: Charles Babbage and an engineer working with him try the Enhancer, and Difference Engine No. 1 is delivered to the British government by Guy Fawkes Day. * 1829: Analytical Engine No. 1 delivered to the British government. Dutch traders at Dejima in Nagasaki Bay introduce Haversham's Enhancer to Japan. Metropolitan Police Act 1829 is granted Royal Assent. :* Oct. 16: James Haversham vanishes. He is last seen leaving his home in the West End of London for his regular morning constitutional. 1830s * 1833: Reform Act 1833 passes by one vote. The Act is substantially similar to that in our history, despite being a year late. * 1834, Oct. 16: The Times (London) reports on the effectiveness of the enhancer when used with 'psychical and mesmeristic abilities' (hypnotism, psi powers, and 'magic'). * 1835: An anti-slavery novel called 'The Civil War, or, the Slave-Holders' Revolt' is published in the USA. The novel tells of a hypothetical civil war between the Slave States and the Free States, in the 1860s. Prominent characters include President Moses Landon (who is assassinated in a theatre by an actor named Leland Henry Osgood, near the start of his second term in office), and General Upton S. Adams (a relative of recent-at-the-time President John Quincy Adams). The war is quite bloody, but ends in a victory for the Free States. The novel garners some interest among abolitionists and Northern college professors, but makes little impact, otherwise. * 1837: Marine Police Force, Bow Street Horse Patrol (the 'Robin Redbreasts'), and Bow Street Runners are integrated into the Metropolitan Police Service. * 1839: First Mechanical Man, called 'Mr. Clank', after the noises it makes while walking, is demonstrated on the Queen's Birthday. * 1840: Ada Lovelace begins publishing articles on the programming of analytical engines, and begins a correspondence with Mr. Charles Babbage. 1840s * 1841: Ada Lovelace first meets Charles Babbage. Electrical facsimile machine invented by Alexander Bain. * 1842: Sales of crude Mechanical Farmers begin in the USA. A little outside Chard, a small town in Somerset, England, John Stringfellow and William Samuel Henson demonstrate a steam catapult capable of launching manned gliders. * 1846: Inventor and rocket pioneer William Hale is sent a copy of Erasmus Darwin's gas-fueled rocket engine concept, which gives him ideas. Prototypes are flying within a few months. Hale Aeronef Inc. founded. * 1848: Revolutions sweep the continent of Europe. War clanks are used by many factions, not limited to those in power. * 1849: Pope Pius IX dies of an illness. A little over a month later, Pope Alexander IX is elevated to the Papacy. 1850s * 1852: French inventor Henri Giffard travels from Paris to Élancourt in his steam-powered airship. A few months later, his improved design takes him from Paris to London and back. * 1854, March 7th: Thomas Mayfield uses a variant of the Darwin/Hale rocket to allow his glider to stay aloft for longer periods, by firing short bursts. :* Sept. 23: Ernst Kremholtz replaces the gas bottles of a Darwin/Hale rocket with thermos bottles of (expensive) liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. :* Dec. 5: Pope Alexander IX commissions Giuseppe Garibaldi Captain General of the Church, the first in over a century. * 1856: Robert Whitehead develops a self-propelled torpedo, which draws interest from several navies. * 1857: Astronautical Society of the United Kingdom founded in London. The Austrian Navy adapts a fast steamboat, the KuK Teufelsrochen, as a dedicated torpedo-delivery platform. Similar vessels have been used to deliver spar torpedoes for some time. * 1858: The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies falls under Papal rule. US Congress authorizes the Navy to use the rank of 'Flag Officer' as a rank senior to Captain. * 1859: The first unmanned satellite (a large, rubber-and-tinfoil balloon named Marieanne) is launched into orbit from French Guiana. The British vow to exceed this feat, and do - launching a larger balloon called John Bull into a higher orbit on Dec. 6th, using a field in British Guiana. The Astronautical Society receives a royal charter, becoming the Royal Astronautical Society of the United Kingdom. In Italia, the Duchies of Parma and Modena fall to the Kingdom of Sardinia, while the Grand Duchy of Tuscany joins the Papal States. 1860s * 1861: Papal Navy launches SSdn ('Sanctitas Sua de navi,' meaning 'His Holiness's ship') Sanctus Nicolaus de Myra, the first true torpedo-boat destroyer. Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia absorbed into the Papal States. Duchies of Parma and Modena 'liberated' (conquered) by the Papal States. * 1862: With the conquest of the mainland portions of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Papal control is consolidated over Italia, save those parts ruled by the Austrian Empire. The Most Serene Republic of San Marino remains independent, however. At Tara Plantation in Clayton County, Georgia, newlyweds Rhett and Scarlett Butler emancipate all their slaves, celebrating by sharing doses of Haversham's with the whole group. Many will remain at Tara as paid employees, but a few take up jobs at a clank factory Scarlett has invested in, in nearby Jonesborough. * 1863: James Clerk Maxwell demonstrates his new invention, a form of wireless telegraphy using radio waves, to the impressed Royal Society. Denmark renames itself Daneland. Air Surveillance Battalion, Royal Regiment of Artillery founded in Britain. Off the coast of Ceará, a Brazilian glider pilot and inventor named Henrique Leandro Pinheiro d'Cruze demonstrates a boosted glider capable of delivering a single torpedo against a target ship (which promptly sank, though more due to a lucky hit and the ship being old and ill-maintained). Dom Pedro II is among the witnesses, and orders the Imperial Armada (Brazilian Navy) to purchase the design. * 1865: Glider Service, Royal Navy founded. The gliders are to serve as scouts, light bombers, and torpedo-carriers. Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Este (wife of Henri, Count of Chambord, Legitimist pretender to the French throne) is killed, along with her maid and three others, by a runaway clank in Blois. * 1866: Articles of Federation signed by Norway, Sweden, Daneland, and Iceland; Scandinavian Federation forms. First dedicated glider-carrier, HMS Malmesbury, commissioned. She is widely criticized for being so lightly armed, being the size of a cruiser, with the guns of a torpedo-boat destroyer. Ministry of Astronautics formed in London. The state of Kentucky abolishes slavery within its borders. * 1867: Dual Monarchy Compromise transforms the Austrian Empire into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In Japan, the Meiji Restoration begins. A dispute over fishing rights in the North Sea turns bloody when HNLMS Sophie, a frigate of the Royal Netherlands Navy, fires on the British Royal Navy torpedo-boat destroyer HMS Charybdis (though some witnesses claim that it was the British who fired first). Fifth (or Seventh, depending on which newspaper or politician you prefer) Anglo-Dutch War, AKA 'The Fisherman's War', begins. Russia's attempt to sell their American colonies falls through. * 1868: 16th Amendment to the US Constitution is passed, requiring gradual emancipation of all slaves in US states, territories, and protectorates, with slavery to become entirely illegal in 1888. Scarlett Butler founds the Ellen O'Hara Negro Women's College in a mansion purchased from a neighbor who went bust. First air-to-air 'battle' (well, skirmish), as Dutch observers in a balloon fire rifles at a British glider, and the glider's Observer returns fire with a flaregun, igniting the airbag (the pilot and observer both had revolvers, but correctly decided that the flare-gun would be more effective). HNLMS De Ruyter, first Dutch glider-carrier (converted from an armoured cruiser), recommissioned. The Fisherman's War begins winding down, late in the year. * 1869: Second Malmesbury-class glider-carrier, HMS Cayley, commissioned. Seventh (or Fifth) Anglo-Dutch War ends. Construction begins on the first permanent space station (a collection of reinforced balloons), by the Russian Empire. Pope Alexander IX dies on December 3rd. On Christmas Day, the British begin construction of a permanent space station of their own. * 1870: On March 5th, Pope Clement XV is elected in Rome. Franco-Prussian War begins on July 7th. On August 3rd, Napoleon III dies at the Battle of Strasbourg. Henri, Count of Chambord speaks eloquently to both Clement XV, and the Executive Council of the Scandinavian Federation, bringing them into the war on France's side. Napoleon III's daughter, Princess Marie, convinces the Count to marry her. 1870s * 1871: The British finally one-up everyone, being the first to install gravity modules - a pair of inflated, counter-rotating wheels - on their space station. Otto Eduard Leopold Graf von Bismarck-Schönhausen, Chancellor of the North German Confederation, is assassinated outside his office in Berlin. Both French spies and Hanoverian separatists are suspected. Rumors surface in the press that the battle that started the recent Anglo-Dutch war had nothing to do with the fishing dispute: allegedly, HNLMS Sophie fired on the Charybdis because the ship's Captain, Kapitein-luitenant ter zee Gerlach Driessen, had learned that the Captain of HMS Charybdis (Senior Lieutenant James Bray) had recently slept with Driessen's French mistress. As both men died in the war, the British and Dutch public decide to blame the French. In Paris, the Second French Empire ends, as Henri, Count of Chambord is crowned Henri V, King of the French. Historians will refer to this as the Second Bourbon Restoration - some also refer to the entire period of the Second Republic, Second Empire, and Second Restoration as 'the era of the Seconds'. * 1872: Prussia surrenders; Franco-Prussian War ends. North German Confederation is officially dissolved, though it has been dead de facto for some time. Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation is recreated by the victorious powers, save for those areas claimed as spoils of war. Air Surveillance Battalion, Royal Regiment of Artillery becomes Royal Regiment of Aviation. HRH Albert, the Prince Consort, presents the charter to the Regiment's CO, Colonel Sir Gerald Saunders, CB, Kt. Georgia abolishes slavery within its borders. Many newspapers credit plantation owner and industrialist Scarlett Butler with the rapid pace of this action, but in fact, it has been coming for some time. * 1873: Netherlands joins the Scandinavian Federation. The US Congress splits the rank of Flag Officer into 'Flotilla Captain' and 'Fleet Captain'. In London, the Detective Branch of the Metropolitan Police is reorganized into the Criminal Investigation Department, or CID. * 1875: On February 23rd, Sir Geoffery Thornbury-Wallace (later GCB) becomes the first man to walk on the Moon. Though he does not know it, he is observed by non-human intelligences. He does discover a number of very delicate animal-like and plant-like lifeforms, however. Analysis of samples (or the remains of samples, as re-entry is generally fatal to them) brought back to England shows life on the moon to be silicon-based. On December 5th, Arkady Nicholeievich Gorbachev is first Russian to walk on Luna. * 1876: First issue of the International Register of Eugenic Races published. At 221b Baker Street, London, Dr. John Watson begins to share rooms with Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Fourth British Expedition to Luna makes first contact with the native sophonts, a race of insect-like humanoids with beaked faces, and mediaeval technology, but possessing natural radio-transceivers with which to communicate. In New York, a man named Rudolph Fentz disappears. Maryland becomes a Free State. * 1877: Edgar Cayce is born. Scandinavian Federation begins construction of a permanent moon-base. * 1878: Four new Earths appear in a line ahead of this Earth, in the same orbital path. This is cause for great concern, and not just among astronomers Category:Timelines Category:Fanwork